Our neighbourhood is too popular

Our neighbourhood, Defence colony, was established in the 50s. The army sold plots to soldiers to build their homes. The colony was divided into 5 blocks, with different plot sizes. The biggest plots were a single line on the southern side of the colony and reserved for generals (block E) ; plots from C and B blocks were quite wide and reserved for officers, and so on. Parks were set at regular intervals in the blocks.

Soon the colony opened to non-military inhabitants, as houses were sold or passed down to the next generation. It so happens that the grandfather of the husband of our neighbour Shalini was one of the officers who bought a plot and built a house for his family in the 50s here. The family has not moved since then.

'Def Co' as it is called is now a very popular colony to live in. Not the trendiest - you would look at Hauz Khas for that - nor the most upscale (golf links, sunder nagar..), but very popular. The neighbourhood is nice, its market very well stocked for grocery shopping, and the parks are small but great.

Ironically, the best plots (E block) are now amongst the worst to live in, as they are set along what has become 'the ring road', one of the the big beltways in south Delhi. As for us, we are just behind the row of E block houses, and that is still too close to the road.
Another place to avoid in the colony is the 'canal', which is actually an open-air drainage sewer running down between blocks C and D. Thankfully we are far enough from this one.

The view to the front. There is a nice big house and trees, but just behind the ring road is roaring.

Originally, the houses had to be no more than two storey high and had to have a large front yard area. Now the rules have changed and one can build 4 storey high buildings, covering a larger part of the plots.

Popularity + new construction rules + a fast developing economy mean on the one hand that the rents have sky-rocketed and on the other hand that the older houses are torn down and new buildings are erected. Everywhere. All the time.

This is why we live in a new building, why the building down the street is in construction, and why on the street behind three new houses are getting built side by side. And, as we found out last week, why the building just behind ours is now being torn down.

The construction work is done the indian way, with lots of cheap labor and little machinery. The workers are currently breaking down the building behind our place with hammers. This is less noisy than a jackhammer but definitely slower. Soon they will dig a deep hole for the foundations, and then store huge mounds of bricks, sand, iron and marble sheets on the street. Then they erect the walls. They will pile ten to twelve bricks on their heads to carry to the construction area. They will cut the stones and the iron bars in the street, creating lots and lots of noise and dust. They will also set up light-weight bamboo scaffoldages.
The guys work non stop, 7 days a week, early morning to late at night - we are actually lucky they stop for the night.

Actually, it's not only men who take up this kind of job. Women are also part of the construction crew and they seem to be working as hard as men. The crew is allowed to live on site and children roam the building sites.

As annoying as it is, the work is quite fascinating to watch and also scary. The workers stand on a wall or on a single bamboo stick, over the void. They use blow torches with no goggles.

Of course, all of this rush to build in a country where infrastructure quality is notoriously poors results in low quality buildings. The insulation is very poor, which is a shame in a place with very very high heat in the summer and cold winters. Sound proofing is non existant. Some of the lights will not work, even when you change the bulbs. There are water damages, especially in the top floor appartments (alas for us). Etc, etc.
Overall, the general durability of the buildings is questionable. It happens that some recent buildings, maybe only 5 years old ones, are torn down to be reconstructed. That is cheaper than to rehabilitate them.

Another characteristic of this construction boom is that there are only 4 to 5 models of buildings, so they all look very similar. The charm of the neighbourhoods in South delhi is that all houses are different, with nice front yards where trees grow. This is definitely not the case with the modern buildings, even though they look quite neat when they are new. I hope enough of the old houses will remain so that the neighbourhood will keep its character.

The view from the back of our flat - before. The building was quite low and we had some open view ; after the construction is finished we will just be facing a wall.

Now. The guys have already torn down the terrace. The work is going surprisingly fast despite the lack of powered tools.